LandScope Gets the Attention of GIS Professionals Around the World
GIS professionals are not the primary audience for LandScope America, since they already have most of the mapping capabilities that LandScope will provide. However, they are a primary source of information for the LandScope website and wall maps. That’s why we decided to make a big promotional push at the ESRI International User Conference in San Diego on August 4-8. That premier GIS event brings 15,000 geospatial experts from all sectors, states, and nations together to share knowledge and learn where the technology is and where it’s heading. It’s quite an event, with hundreds of concurrent paper presentations, technical workshops, vendor exhibits, and the largest, most spectacular map gallery in the world.
We made a big splash with LandScope. First, ESRI paid to print and distribute our new wall map to all 15,000 attendees. It was thrilling to walk into the mile-long plenary session on Monday morning and see the maps on every seat. It was especially rewarding to see how many of these cartophiles were unfolding their maps and squinting in the dimly-lit hall to read the maps and study the data, most of which had never before been published at a national scale.
There were numerous demonstrations of state-of-the-art web mapping sites. I was encouraged to see that the LandScope map viewer that we’re developing is on the forefront of this movement to bring GIS to the general public. The keynote address was given by Peter Raven, Director of Missouri Botanical Garden, and National Geographic Board Member. Peter talked about the importance of biodiversity, and the ever-expanding role of humans in tending this “garden” we call Earth. His presentation highlighted LandScope as a means of helping managers and the public take action to conserve, manage, and restore the biodiversity and open space remaining in this country.
—Frank Biasi, Director, Conservation Projects, National Geographic Maps

 out of  found this valuable. Do you find this valuable?